Cyclone Idai causes stage four load-shedding

MBOMBELA – The country is so dependent on electricity imports from neighbouring states that a loss of 1 100 megawatts from Mozambique forced Eskom to implement this phase.

One transmission line that carries power from Cahora Bassa to South Africa gave out at about midnight on Friday and the other on Saturday morning. Phase 4 load-shedding meant that consumers could be without power for more than an hour multiple times a day.

Damaged lines are currently inaccessible, and the extent of damage is unknown at the time of going to press. Time to restore lines is also unknown.

But these are not the only problems the parastatal is facing. A solid source within Eskom revealed that there is virtually no diesel left to run the open-cycle emergency gas turbines, although a diesel shipment turbines was expected to arrive today.

Eskom’s pumped storage dams are very low on water and power generation from these units are virtually non-existent.

Eight generating units were down, because their boiler tubes were leaking due to lack of maintenance. This is a total of 5 000 megawatts lost.

Plus, three other generating units are running with leaking boiler tubes.

Stage 2 calls for 2 000 megawatts, stage 3 calls for 3 000 megawatts, and stage 4 calls for 4 000 megawatts to be rotationally load-shed nationally at a given period.

Eskom highlighted that load-shedding was an emergency measure to prevent the power system from collapsing completely. If this happened, the country could be in darkness for at least two weeks.